{"id":22403,"date":"2024-02-21T12:21:27","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T11:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=22403"},"modified":"2024-02-21T12:21:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T11:21:27","slug":"step-into-a-mesmerising-the-audio-experience-eternal-at-the-belfast-xr-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2024\/02\/step-into-a-mesmerising-the-audio-experience-eternal-at-the-belfast-xr-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Step Into A Mesmerising The Audio Experience Eternal At The Belfast XR Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Eternal-3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-22404\" src=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Eternal-3-1024x683.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eternal, the profound exploration of eternal life, has been confirmed as one of the unique experiences at this year\u2019s Belfast XR Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During this 20 minute experience attendees will step into the realm of eternity with a mesmerising audio journey designed exclusively for one person, in the comfort of their own bed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As intimate audiences of just two people per time slot climb into a bed in the Black Box Green Room they will delve into a profound exploration of eternal life and contemplate the sacrifices one might make for immortality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This experience, originally commissioned by the prestigious Bram Stoker Festival, was developed by the creators at <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">DARKFIELD, written by Glen Neath and is performed by Lloyd Hutchinson under the direction David Rosenberg and Glen Neath.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepa Mann-Kler, director and curator for Belfast XR Festival added: \u201cI\u2019m so excited that we are able to share Eternal with our audiences this year. This is a very special experience where you will be guided to your own candle lit bed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cOur staff will be on hand to help you throughout the experience. Darkfield, the company who created Eternal, are magicians of sound. Your heart will race, listening to this story, and you may want to take your headphones off and rip off the duvet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEternal is equally comforting and terrifying. The challenge is to stay until the end, because the rewards are eternal life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belfast XR, now in its third year, specialises in curating worldclass immersive technology content that takes the art of storytelling to a new level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The innovative arts festival which will once again merge technology and art to create a unique virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experience for attendees\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Extended Reality or \u2018XR\u2019 is the collective name for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). VR is a computer-generated artificial environment with scenes that appear to be real, while AR is a digital overlay onto the real world, which is viewed through your phone or an iPad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of the annual Belfast XR Festival, which is an annual gathering for the XR arts &#8211; storytelling, visual arts, music, drama, dance, literature and theatre, Deepa said bringing virtual and augmented reality content to new audiences locally is something the team at Belfast XR are passionate about: \u201cI have been working with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) since 2016 with my company Neon. During that time I have been fortunate to visit XR Festivals across the USA and Europe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI realised that there are so many incredible stories being told in this medium that audiences in Northern Ireland never get the opportunity to experience. This was my key motivation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cOur ambition is to create an unmissable annual gathering for XR that inspires storytelling and our passion is to bring the best global virtual and augmented reality content to new local audiences. You don\u2019t need to have used a virtual reality headset before, as our team will guide you through the whole process.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Running on Wednesday February 28 and Thursday 29 this year\u2019s festival theme is Legacy which will offer attendees the chance to experience world history in captivating ways allowing audiences to step into the past, interact with historical figures, and explore significant events firsthand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belfast XR Festival is both for XR enthusiasts and those who haven\u2019t experienced any form of XR in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepa explained: \u201cThe Festival is aimed at 16+ years of age and is open to everyone. You don\u2019t need to have experienced AR, VR or any of these types of experiences before. We have an amazing team who will guide you through the whole process from the minute you step into The Black Box.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI want people to have memorable experiences. I want them to be altered, in a good way. I want them to talk about how it made them feel. I want to increase their appetite to experience more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Belfast XR Festival is supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. It is also supported by the Department for Communities through Northern Ireland Screen, Digital Catapult NI, Future Screens NI and Ulster Screen Academy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>For more information follow Belfast XR Festival on social media or go to <\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.belfastxrfestival.com\"><b><i>belfastxrfestival.com<\/i><\/b><\/a><b><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eternal, the profound exploration of eternal life, has been confirmed as one of the unique experiences at this year\u2019s Belfast XR Festival. During this 20 minute experience attendees will step into the realm of eternity with a mesmerising audio journey designed exclusively for one person, in the comfort of their own bed.\u00a0 As intimate audiences &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2024\/02\/step-into-a-mesmerising-the-audio-experience-eternal-at-the-belfast-xr-festival\/\">Continued<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[388,1800,1801,1803,1802,1804,1799],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22405,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22403\/revisions\/22405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}